Not long after the Bataan prisoners began flooding O’Donnell, the hospital became more of a morgue than a place to be treated. The doctors and medics, most of them also suffering from one or more maladies, had almost no medicine. Even the basics such as quinine for malaria, or paregoric for dysentery, or vitamin C for scurvy were in urgently short supply. Most of the supplies — tape, gauze, disinfectant, aspirin, and so on — were smuggled in by doctors from other hospitals. The Japanese provided virtually nothing.
The doctors were forced to hoard the medicines and give them only to the men who seemed most likely to survive. Giving drugs to a severe case was, in effect, wasting the drugs. As the supplies got thinner, the doctors devised a simple lottery system to determine the winners.
Clay dragged Pete back to the hospital and finally managed to corner a doctor. He explained that his friend had not only dysentery but malaria as well, and seemed to be fading fast. The doctor said he was sorry, but he had nothing. Clay had heard the rumor, and with so many idle men the rumor mill raged nonstop, that there was a black market for some of the more common medicines. Clay asked the doctor about this, and he claimed to know nothing. But, as they were leaving, the doctor whispered, “Behind ward four.”
Behind ward four, sitting under a shade tree was a plump American with a deck of cards. On a makeshift table, he was playing some type of game that needed only one participant. The fact that he was not emaciated was clear evidence that he was gaming the system. When they had surrendered, Clay had noticed a few heavier American captives. They were generally older and worked somewhere in the army’s vast administration abyss. When forced to march, many of them had fallen quickly.
This guy had not marched anywhere. Nor had he missed many meals. He was powerfully built with a thick chest, muscled arms, a squat neck. And a sneer that Clay instantly hated. He dealt some cards to himself, glanced up at Clay, and asked, “Need something?”
Clay released Pete, who managed to stand on his own, and assessed the situation. It was one he did not care for. It was one that infuriated him. Clay said, “Yeah, my friend here needs some quinine and paregoric. Somebody said you got it.”
On the table, there were four small bottles of pills next to the deck of cards. The dealer glanced at the bottles and said, “Got a few pills left. A buck a pop.”
Without a word, without a warning, Clay growled, “You bloodsuckin’ sack of shit!” He attacked, kicking the table and sending the cards and bottles flying. The dealer jumped up, yelled “What the hell!” and threw a roundhouse right at Clay, who was charging. Clay ducked low, and with a right upper cut caught the dealer square in the testicles. As they popped together, he screamed and fell to the dirt. Clay kicked him viciously in the face, then dropped to his knees and pounded away as a blind rage overcame fatigue, starvation, dehydration, and whatever else Clay had at the moment. All was forgotten as he could finally, after days of wanting to fight back and kill the enemy, deliver some resistance and revenge. After a dozen or so shots to the face, he stopped and slowly stood. He said, “You low-life son of a bitch. Making a buck off men who are dying. You’re lower than the damned Japs.”
The dealer was not done. He managed to maneuver onto all fours, undoubtedly with more pain in his crotch than in his bloody face, then stood, although unsteadily. He glanced around and noticed that a crowd was gathering. Nothing was more enjoyable than a good fistfight, primarily because so few of the prisoners had the energy to start or finish one.
He was bleeding from the nose and the mouth and a cut above his right eye, and he should have stayed on the ground. With a limp caused by his aching balls, he stepped toward Clay and growled, “You son of a bitch.”
The word “bitch” had barely escaped his mouth when a fist smacked it with such speed that the punch was barely visible. With a perfect left-right combo, Clay drew even more blood. The dealer wasn’t much of a boxer and had never brawled with a cowboy, and as they sparred he had a terrible time landing a punch. Clay circled him, firing away and pretending he was punching a Jap. A hard right to the chin dropped the dealer again. He fell onto the board he’d been using as a table, and Clay, still in a rage, grabbed the board and began pounding his hapless opponent. The sound of hardwood cracking against his skull became sickening, but Clay could not stop. He had seen so much death that life was now cheap, and who in hell cared if he killed a man he considered lower than a Jap?
A guard with a bayonet on a rifle stepped next to him and stuck him gently in the back. Clay stopped his pounding, looked at the guard, and stood. He tried to catch his breath and was suddenly exhausted.
The guard smiled and said, “No stop. Fight more.”
Clay looked at the battered face of the dealer. He looked at Pete, who was standing under the tree and shaking his head no. He looked at the gaunt men in the crowd who’d hurried over to watch.
He looked at the Jap and said, “No. I’m finished.”
The guard raised his bayonet, poked Clay in the chest, nodded at the guy in the dirt, and said, “Kill him.”
Clay ignored the bayonet and said, “No. That’s what you do.”
He took a step back, fully expecting the guard to lunge at him and begin something awful, but the guard only lowered his rifle and stared at Clay, who walked to the tree to retrieve Pete. The crowd slowly dispersed as the dealer came to his senses and started to move.
Pete had found a new best friend. An hour later, they were hiding from the sun behind the barracks. The odors inside their building had become so noxious that they tried to avoid it. Pete was sitting under a tree with Clay nearby. They were chatting with others, whiling away the hours, when the same guard found them. He addressed Clay, who stood and bowed and faced him in anticipation of a bad scene. Instead, the guard pulled a small bottle from his pocket, handed it to Clay, nodded at Pete, and said, “For your friend.” Then he turned in a perfect about-face and marched away.
The pills were quinine, lifesavers for Pete and a few others in his barracks.
Chapter 28
As was her ritual, at 6:00 p.m. Nineva left supper on the stove and walked to her cottage. Liza watched her leave through a bedroom window, thankful once again that she was gone and the family was alone. In the nine years that Liza had lived in the main house, she and Nineva had learned to coexist, often side by side as they canned fruits and vegetables from the garden and talked about the children. With Pete gone, they leaned on each other daily, with each trying to appear stronger than the other. In front of the kids, they were stoic and confident that the Allies would win the war and he would be home soon. Both women shed plenty of tears, but always in private.
On Tuesday, May 19, the family was in the middle of supper, and the conversation was about the summer. Vacation began tomorrow, and Joel and Stella were eager to start the three-month holiday. He was sixteen, a rising senior, and the youngest in his class. She was fifteen and would be a sophomore. They wanted to travel some, perhaps to New Orleans or Florida, but the truth was that no definite plans could be made. They had not heard from their father in over four months, and this uncertainty dominated their lives.
From just outside the kitchen window, Mack started barking as a wave of headlights swept through the kitchen. A car had approached and was somewhere out front. Since no one was expected, the three gave each other a fearful look. Liza jumped to her feet and said, “Someone is here. I’ll see who it is.”